A bell which was formerly displayed at the Sanborn First Presbyterian Church can now be seen at a new location. The church bell, which was cast in 1890, now sits just to the west of the steps of Sanborn’s Carnegie Hall (the former Carnegie Library) on West 2nd Street.
A member of the recently-closed church contacted Faye Schall of Sanborn Preservation in regard to the Carnegie being an appropriate location for the historically-significant item. Schall welcomed the bell with open arms. That’s just a figure of speech, of course, because it took Roger and Deb Vanden Brink, Ron Schott and Roger’s skid loader to transport the weighty bell from the church to Carnegie Hall.
The bell tolled at the original First Presbyterian Church in Sanborn, having arrived from the Meneely & Co. Bell Foundry of West Troy, NY. It was a gift of the church’s Ladies’ Aid Society. With the completion of the new church in 1961, the bell was displayed in a brick enclosure near the church entrance.